


origins

by ewagan



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:09:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22860781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewagan/pseuds/ewagan
Summary: "Tell me about my mother," he says to Thanatos, one of the days (nights?) Thanatos has more than a minute to spare.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 152





	origins

"Tell me about my mother," he says to Thanatos, one of the days (nights?) Thanatos has more than a minute to spare. They're sprawled over his too large bed, and it's nice actually, to take a break for once.

Still, he turns to face Thanatos, who is frowning at the ceiling. "Did you commission the contractor to paint a mural of you dying on the ceiling?” He sounds faintly puzzled. “And is that… Dionysus?” There’s that look on his face when he’s trying to figure something out, and Zagreus waits for him to put it together. Personally, he thinks it was one of his better renovation ideas, and absolutely guaranteed to infuriate Father, so there was that.

“Zagreus, did you get that ridiculous song Orpheus has been singing about you and Dionysus done up on your ceiling?” Thanatos is frowning at him, and it makes Zagreus grin in delight.

“Yes, yes I did. Something different, y’know?” Zag leers at him, pressing in obnoxiously close. Thanatos snorts and shoves his face away, not that it deters him from leaning in to rest his chin on Thanatos’ chest.

“So. My mother,” he says again, and Thanatos rolls his eyes.

"Why are you asking me? Why not ask Nyx or Hypnos or Achilles?" Than sounds faintly exasperated, but Zagreus knows him well enough to know it isn't a refusal, just a deflection.

"Because they'll all tell me different things, and I want to know what you know," Zagreus' fingers trace a line down Thanatos' left arm and Thanatos lets out a sigh.

“You’re terrible, you know,” he says. “I have no idea where you got it from, because it’s definitely not from your father.” His hand betrays his dour tone, almost affectionate as it rests between Zagreus' shoulder blades, tracing idle patterns.

Zagreus has wondered about her, especially of late. It is not that he doesn't appreciate Nyx or love her, there is something in him that _yearns,_ be it to know who he is or where he comes from. How much of him was from her? How much was he his father?

"She was beautiful. Green eyes, like yours. There was something about her that always felt like she was trying to make something grow, come to life." Zagreus thinks that sounds near impossible, when most everything in this realm was dead or divine. The closest things he'd seen to living were the vermin and the satyrs in the Temple of Styx, and even then they'd seemed more dead than alive.

"What else?" he prompts, and Thanatos throws him another exasperated look.

"She was kind, whenever we talked. She was the reason Orpheus even had a chance to save Eurydice. He'd moved her with his song and devotion, persuaded Lord Hades to give him a chance. And your father," Thanatos pauses, considering his next words.

"I'll just say I've never seen Lord Hades like that," he says softly. There's a faraway look in his eyes, sifting through memory after memory. "I wouldn't call it happy precisely, but I think your father loved her."

Hades had never resembled something like loving to him, that he remembers anyhow. But there is a faint memory of large hands holding his own, the smell of something faintly sweet and real, feeling safe, _loved_.

"You're more like her, I think," Zagreus wonders about that really. He doesn't know her at all, and Thanatos—by his own admission, not very well. The only person who would know about her with any certainty would be Father, but it's clear that his mother was a forbidden subject, just as the Olympians had been, and much of his father's past. He barely knows his father, if he stops to think about it.

He hardly knows anything about where he comes from, really.

"So how did she end up down here then? Somehow I doubt Father charmed her enough to make her come down herself. And she clearly didn't leave a note, or Demeter wouldn't have set an eternal winter upon the mortal realm." He's pieced together enough of that was going on, the increased workload for his father's house and Thanatos, the things the Olympians said carelessly.

Thanatos frowns at him. "There are stories," he says, uncertain. "I don't know the truth of them, but they say your father brought her here against her will, or tricked her here. Refused to let her leave. But she left anyways, so I wonder how true it is."

"Was she unhappy?" Zagreus wonders. _He_ hasn't been unhappy, much as he chafed under all the expectations that his father laid on him. The Underworld could be a grim, dark place, but you could find happiness if you cared to. The proof of it was right here.

"She never seemed so. At least, not to me." But she hadn't wanted to stay, Zagreus thinks. "But what would I know? She still left." Than sounds distant, as if his thoughts are elsewhere.

It takes a while for Zagreus to catch on. "Hey Than," He shifts so he can see Thanatos' face, which is blank in the worst sort of way. "Than," he says softly. "I wouldn't do that to you."

But he has, he thinks. He left and hadn't told Than, the same way his mother had done that to his father. And if Father had loved her in the way Achilles had implied, with the sort of devotion that bound two lives together so inextricably, what must it have done to his father when she had left?

Than had been so angry when he'd first caught up, Zagreus remembers. They hadn't even had this then, and he remembers how Achilles and Nyx had cautioned him to be careful with Than. He wonders now how he’d ever thought it would have been alright or excusable, or been so certain Thanatos would forgive him.

Thanatos just gives him a look now. "Don't make me promises you can't keep, Zagreus." He sounds so weary. But his features soften a little, his hand moving up to curve around Zagreus' nape in an affectionate sort of gesture.

If he'd succeeded, if it hadn't been so bloody difficult to get out of the Underworld, would he have this? Would he have learned what he knows now, earned from countless deaths and fights?

He is not his mother, he is not his father. He hardly knows who he is, only that he has been changing and learning as he fights his way through the Underworld. But he wonders if some things are unshakable and unchangeable, so intrinsic that it is like the blood in his veins. Thoughtlessness, carelessness, cruelty; the things that run through his Olympian cousins, that he sometimes sees in his father.

He doesn't want to be like them.

Zagreus turns his head, grasping Than's hand to kiss the palm of it. Not a promise, just a quiet sort of gratitude for being here, for still being here.

"Thank you, Than," he says softly. Than's thumb strokes across his cheek, and Zagreus leans into the touch.

"Of course," The way Thanatos looks at him now makes him wish he had done better, but he has now, and the future.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments appreciated. i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/ewagan).


End file.
